The Puppet Master
by Where's Jess
Summary: Kankuro finally meets his match. Kankuro x OC Don't really know how to summarise right now because I'm not sure where it's going. M for language.


**My first fanfic.**

**Not really sure where it is headed but it's going to be a romance and not much action.**

**None of the characters aside from OC belong to me.**

Chapter one

Garbed in black robes, he watched her perform with an ironic smile on his face; his painted lips twisted up as one of his eyebrows stretched to reach the brim of his hat. She sung with such unbridled passion that it seemed to pulsate through the room, he noticed the twinkling eyes and contented expressions on his companions faces and groaned.

"Fuck Temari, I thought we would be leaving by now." He commented bitterly, leaning back on his seat and resting his hands behind his head.

Temari made a shushing motion, never tearing her gaze away from the singer, causing Kankuro's frown to deepen. Going out wasn't something Kankuro enjoyed, the idea of associating with other people when he didn't have to irritated him. His fingers twitched on nothing as he imagined pulling at the chakra strings that connected him to his puppets as he waited for the night to be over.

The girl on-stage was singing a slow, lyrical song in Japanese accompanied by a piano. Her voice was soft and sweet as it escaped her mouth but that didn't change the fact that he didn't want to be there. It wasn't to do with the performer, who was a chunin of the leaf village, so much as his company: Temari, Sakura and Ino. He would rather spend the evening with _Naruto_ than with Temari and her friends but somehow he'd been roped into joining them.

"Why did I agree to this?" He muttered to himself with a growl.

"Shut up Kankuro!" Ino barked at him, causing a few glances to be snuck their way in irritation. Ino composed herself and said as quietly as she could, "We thought you might like to meet her, she's just as much of a sarcastic bastard as you are. If anything we're doing you a favour."

Mouth smiling crookedly he gave an unimpressed laugh, causing a vein on Ino's brow to strain as she struggled to stay calm.

"Have you even looked at her?" She hissed.

His eyes slid up to the performer. She was slim with skin the colour of milky coffee, her body was hidden by a navy blue cheongsam that stretched all the way to the floor and had the intriguing ability to show off her figure nicely and yet remain surprisingly modest. Her dark brown hair hung loose on either side of her face and fell just below her collarbone, the strands closest to either side of her face had small pieces of ribbon wrapped around the ends so that they swung separately from the rest of hair. She was pretty he concluded and shrugged in approval.

Ino muttered irritably at him and turned her attention away.

The last key of the piano was hit and claps erupted around the room, the walls reverberated with sound and the girl onstage flushed red, she bowed slightly to the audience and took her leave, relinquishing the stage and flurrying quickly over to the small group at the back. Kankuro hung his head; he'd been here for hours.

"You were amazing Shizuka!" Sakura beamed excitedly, the other two agreed fervently as the performer took the seat next to Sakura. Temari hit his leg under the table, indicating for him to sit up. He did so but not without making a great show of it, huffing and grumbling, stretching his arms over his head and yawning. Shizuka laughed and his eyebrow automatically lifted in interest.

"Ignore him, he's being _awkward_." Temari sighed with a smile, finishing her sentence with a punctuating thump on his arm that bore unnecessary force.

"Ow, fuck Temari!"

"Don't worry about it, that's pretty much how I feel all the time." Shizuka replied with a half-smile and a lazy look in her eye.

Temari, Sakura and Ino snorted loudly as though she had said something hilarious and nodded enthusiastically, "That's true!"

Shizuka looked at them all individually as the guffawed with an air of confusion and Kankuro unintentionally broke into a smile, "I don't really get them either," he declared.

Their eyes connected, an intrigued smile played on Shizuka's lips as she replied "You're Kankuro right?"

Ino, Sakura and Temari broke from their laughter and collected themselves off the table, one by one returning their original stances.

"Yeah he's Kankuro." Sakura waved dismissively.

"I'm Kankuro." He said irately, casting a pointed stare at Sakura who ignored him.

"Hm," Shizuka responded playfully.

Kankuro gave a chuckle and his eyebrows leapt for his hair as he attempted to remain looking nonchalant. This girl was more interesting than he'd thought she would be. Their brief conversation was interrupted swiftly by Ino, chattering at a speed that he was sure only she could understand. Shizuka's eyes lingered on him a second longer than they needed to before she swept her gaze away to face her enthusiastic friend.

_This just got interesting,_ Kankuro thought.

Her performance had gone without a hitch but Shizuka still felt an immense weight lift off her shoulders as she slumped back into normality with her friends at the back of the Izakaya. Well, her friends and Kankuro.

She'd heard plenty about him from Temari, according to Temari he was sarcastic, hot-headed and grumpy. She was intrigued. _Sounds like my kind of guy_, she thought with a wry smile.

Ino yapped for a good half an hour after her performance, Shizuka enjoyed it, albeit mainly because it meant she got to drink a good deal of saké without being interrupted. Eventually even Ino got tired of her own voice and slumped back in defeat, having exhausted every conversation topic in her arsenal.

"Well, I'm going to leave and change out of this damn thing." Shizuka stood, tugging on her cheongsam in distaste, "Thanks for the sake. See you guys around." She called over her shoulder in a laid back drawl with a lazy, one stroke wave.

"You're leaving already Shizuka?" Sakura asked in disappointment.

"Yeah, I've got training tomorrow so I need to sleep." She replied, turning briefly so as not to seem rude.

"Oh okay. Well it was good seeing you, even if it wasn't for very long!" Sakura beamed, endearment for the young chunin clear on her face.

"Bye Shizuka!" Ino and Temari exclaimed.

"See ya around…" Kankuro leered mockingly.

**Hope this first part is okay.**

**If you spot any embarrassing mistakes (which there are probably lots of) let me know and I'll fix it.**

**Thanks :D**


End file.
